China marks the 36th National Land Day on June 25 amid continued efforts to strengthen farmland protection, improve land-use efficiency and support high-quality development.

As a country with a large population and limited per capita land resources, China is pursuing more intensive and sustainable land management to balance food security, ecological conservation and modernization.

Protecting farmland remains a national priority. Under China's territorial spatial planning framework, the country will maintain no less than 1.865 billion mu (about 124 million hectares) of arable land and 1.546 billion mu of permanent basic farmland through 2035.

Efforts are increasingly focused on improving land quality, restoring degraded soils and enhancing ecological functions alongside preserving farmland acreage.

These efforts have helped strengthen the country's food security amid increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Despite challenges ranging from delayed winter wheat sowing caused by persistent rainfall last autumn to rainfall during this year's harvest season, China has largely completed its summer grain harvest.

Data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs show that the national wheat harvest is 97% complete, with summer grain production expected to remain stable and deliver another good harvest.

Across the country, innovations are helping unlock the potential of land resources. In east China's Shandong Province, saline-alkali land is being rehabilitated and converted into productive farmland. In the black soil region of northeast China, conservation farming practices such as straw mulching and no-till farming have improved soil fertility and water retention, helping safeguard one of the country's most important grain-producing areas.

At the same time, many cities are shifting from expansion-driven growth to making better use of existing land resources. Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), more than 6 million mu of idle land nationwide has been brought back into use, while the amount of construction land used per unit of GDP has fallen by 19.36%. Pilot programs for inefficient land redevelopment are helping release development potential without expanding urban footprints.

Guangzhou offers one example of this transition. The city has identified about 62,200 hectares of inefficiently used land and launched a long-term redevelopment plan aimed at optimizing urban space, improving land-use efficiency and supporting sustainable urban development. 

Beyond farmland and cities, China is advancing integrated land management that coordinates ecological conservation, restoration and spatial governance. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, 52 large-scale conservation and restoration projects covering 29 provincial-level regions have restored more than 120 million mu of land.

These efforts are helping improve ecosystems while creating new opportunities for rural revitalization and high-quality development.

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China's National Land Day: A determined way to defend the land